According to Yahoo!
News, the march organizers have put in a claim of 530,000 people
today, which is larger than the 500,000 last year. There were several
conflicting figures from the organizers through the evening, with 350,000 at 5:00pm,
400,000 at 6:40pm, 450,000 at 6:55pm but I am going with the latest number of
530,000 at 9:20pm. Incidentally, the different numbers at different times
is the reason why foreign news sources are reporting different totals
depending on their deadlines.

Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson
Jackie Hung Ling-yu said that the front of the march departed at 2:30pm from
Victoria, half a hour before the scheduled time, and took 90 minutes to reach
the Central Government Office in Central. Based upon government
information, the road between Victoria Park to the Central Government Office could hold 170,000 persons. The end of the march reached the Main
Government Building at 8pm. Therefore, they inferred that there must
have been 530,000 persons present today.

How does this calculation work? This is not rocket science. They give this type of problem
to primary school kids.
Let me stipulate that I will accept all the assumptions about travel time and
road capacity because I have no reason to doubt them (and no reason to accept
them, either!). So here is how I did it.

At 2:30pm, the front of the
march departed from Victoria Park and arrived at the destination 90 minutes
later at 4:00pm. At that point, the route is filled to the brim with
170,000 people. Good. So the running total is 170,000 people.

At 4:00pm, the next group of
people departed from Victoria Park and arrived at the destination 90 minutes
later at 5:30pm. At that point, the route is filled to the brim with
another 170,000 people. Good. Now the running total is 170,000 + 170,000 =
340,000 people so far.

At 5:30pm, the next group of
people departed from Victoria Park and they kept leaving until 6:30pm.
The latest time for departure is 6:30pm because they needed 90 minutes to
finish at 8:00pm. Thus, the last group of people all left within one
hour, which means that the road was only two-thirds full. This means
170,000 x 2 / 3 = 113,000 people. Good. Now the running total is
170,000 + 170,000 + 113,000 = 453,000 people. This is illustrated as
follows.

How did they arrive at
530,000? I am clueless (note: see comment
further down after the Sun article where the organizers gave the
explanation of their (incorrect) calculation).

The organizers also claimed that
they had volunteers at various points to count the crowd. No methodology
was described, and no clue was given as to how the two estimates were reconciled
to arrive at 530,000.

By the way, the police estimate
was 200,000 this year. Last year, the organizers claimed 500,000 whereas
the police estimate was 350,000.

For the record, I really don't
care whether the number was 530,000 or 200,000 or whatever. Nor did it
surprise me that the estimates from different parties should diverge so
significantly. The real point
was that there were a lot of people out there, enough to influence the
September elections and thereafter.

Professionally, I don't
like people playing loose and fast with numbers. Let me very specific
about what I did. I made no assumption about people's motives and
actions. I took the assumptions as stated about travel time, crowd
capacity, start and finish times, and I made a clearly described set of calculations. I am not able to
reconcile my number with the claimed total of 530,000. I explained what I did and
I made no judgment. Period. My professional reputation is that I
am infuriatingly logical, precise and unemotional. So please don't come after me with a
battle-axe ...

As protection against
revisionism, here is the original article in Chinese for the record:

[translation] As for the vast difference between the
530,000 and 200,000 estimates, the police said that they used several
methods to estimate the crowd size, including counting the number of people
who departed from Victoria Park, the number of people in the middle at designated
points and times and then they used the average. They also used the
number of people who exited the subway stations along the route as
reference. Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson
Jackie Hung Ling-yu said that they also used the method suggested by the
police to estimate the crowd size. If the route from Causeway Bay to
Central is filled, there should be 170,000 persons. A total of three
groups of people passed through, so that the total is 510,000. Another
20,000 did not go up to the Central Government Office. Therefore, the
total number of marchers was 530,000.

Lecturer Sung Lap-kung at the City
University School of Professional Studies thinks that the Civil Human Rights
Front over-estimated and the police under-estimated. Research
statistician Wong Kar-Ying from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Pan-Asian Research Center questioned that the density of the march this year
was less than last year, so that a figure between 360,000 and 390,000 was
more reasonable.

Here is the scenario according to Jackie
Hung Ling-yu. There were three groups
of people, each group of size 170,000. The first left at 2:30pm and
finished at 4:00pm. The second left at 4:00pm and finished 5:30pm.
The third left at 5:30pm and finished at 7:00pm. And there was an
additional 20,000 somewhere; this 20,000 is a 'fudged' number because the
estimate of the number of people who did not finish is extremely
difficult. I agree that these people exist, but why 20,000? Why
not 15,000? Or 30,000?

Overall, this is a seemingly
plausible scenario, except that it is not physically possible. The groups
actually have to occupy space on the road. They cannot all leave from
the same spot at the same time and arrive at the same spot at the same
time. For example, the leader of the first group left at 2:30pm and
finished at 4:00pm. That does not mean that the entire group has
finished. At 4:00pm, the end of the first group had just left the
starting point and they would not finish until 5:30pm. This is clear
from the chart above that I made. It takes a grand total of 3 hours for
a group of 170,000 to start and finish completely. So when the third group left at
5:30pm, the leaders would indeed finish at 7:00pm. However, the end of
that third 170,000 group did not leave until 7:00pm and so they wouldn't
finish until 8:30pm. The march was reported to have been over by 8:00pm,
and the Transportation Department re-opened the roads at 8:05pm. So this
is not a physically feasible scenario.

The following letter was sent to the South
China Morning Post. It disclosed an unintended piece of information that
challenges one of the assumptions used by the Civil Human Rights Front.

(Sunday Morning Post) Why the count was
low. Letter to the editors from Dee Hartland-Swann of Repulse Bay.
July 4, 2004.

Perhaps the police, besides march organisers
could explain to your readers how they arrived in their tally of 200,000 as
against 530,000 marchers ("Police taught us how to count, say
organisers", July 3).

Where along the route did they stand to
assess the numbers? If people were being counted at the end point of the
march, the Central Government Offices (CGO), then estimates will wildly
undershoot the actual total. Not all marchers went on to the bitter
end. Let me explain, for I was there.

After several hours of good-natured slow
walking in exhausting heat, our section of the demonstration finally arrived
at the Legislative Council building. Marchers then had to be funnelled
on to the narrow paths leading up to the CGO. Many parents felt their
children had had enough by then and opted to leave. Others left the
march because they were worried that the sheer mass of people was forming a
bottleneck as the wide roads of Wan Chai and Central gave way to narrow
paths. They also felt that their essential point had been made. If
the police were simply counting those who arrived in front of the CGO, then
they will have missed well over one-third of the demonstrators, the people who
were sensible enough to avoid creating chaos by mindlessly surging forward
into the bottleneck.

I note that the Post's aerial photo of
Central in the July 2 issue showed the march at precisely the point where the
orderly, tightly packed crowds began to disperse. The crowd I was in for
more than two hours on Thursday afternoon was a lot more dense than the photo
suggests.

Central to the Civil Human Rights Front's
assumptions is that it took the marchers 90 minutes to complete the
march. That may be true for the march leaders. But Ms.
Hartland-Swann said that it took her more than two hours and she did not even
reach the true finishing point. If the average time was in fact 2 hours,
then the crowd size would in fact be smaller by a factor of 1.5 / 2 = 75%.

[translation] After the Civil
Human Rights Front announced that 530,000 attended the 7/1 march, the figure
was questioned by many people. On July 3, Sing Tao daily received a
letter from a reader who is a graduate of Hong Kong University to point out
that the Civil Human Rights Front's calculation was in error. They had
turned two waves into three, and therefore inflated the march crowd by
one-third. When the reader's explanation was shown to Lee Cheuk-yan
and Jackie Hung at the Civil Human Rights Front, they did not rebut and
therefore tacitly accepted that the calculation was in error. But they
did not change their estimate of 530,000.

According to Sing Tao Daily, Jackie Hung
waved her hands and said, "What do you want me to do?" She
emphasized that she had no need to 'exaggerate' the number. Apart from
the formula, they also counted with humans and the number was similar.
She also pointed out that the number was not important, and that the really
important thing was that the government has to make a resonse to the
demonstration.

The Civil Human Rights Front has been
form on the 530,000 estimate which is based upon a set of
calculations. The method is based upon police data which say that the
route from Victoria Park to the Main Government Building can contain 170,000
persons who will take 90 minutes to complete. Since the march took 5.5
hours to complete, the Civil Human Rights Front divided this by 1.5 to
obtain three waves of marchers. 170,000 x 3 = 510,000. If 20,000
more are added as those joined midway, the total became 530,000. But
this calculation involves an elementary school error present in the
"tree planting" problem by double counting the last wave.

On July 3, Sing Tao Daily received a
letter from reader Yuen Chi-keung, who had just graduated in biology from
Hong Kong University. He pointed out that there was a serious error in
calculation, and he said that the crowd estimate was a hot topic at Internet
forums.

Yuen Chi-keung pointed out that
based upon the facts of the march and the assumptions made by the Civil
Human Rights Front, the route can contain 170,000 persons at a time and the
trip took 90 minutes. Between 230pm and 400pm, the first group of
170,000 departed. The second wave departed between 400pm and
530pm. The third wave departed at 545pm. In other words, the
third wave did not contain 170,000. The whole march only contains 2.17
waves, which gives 2.17 x 170,000 + 20,000 = 390,000.

The newspaper also interviewed Lingnan
University Public Administration Research Department head Lee Peng-kwong and
he agreed with the calculations of reader Yuen Chi-Keung while declaring the
Civil Human Rights Front's number to be in error. When Civil Human
Rights Front's Lee Cheuk-yan was interviewed, he also agreed that Yuen
Chi-keung's calculation was correct but he believes that there were many
people who joined in the middle. When asked if their calculation was
wrong, he said that he needed to go back and discuss with his people.

Jackie Hung said that apart from this
calculation, they also used human observers to make counts. When asked
about why Human Rights Monitor's count was only 160,000, Hung said that
Human Rights Monitor Chief Executive Law Yuk-kai explained to her that if
the error in the count was factored it, the number would be more than
200,000 and if more than
half the people joined the march in the middle, they can still arrive at a 400,000 to
500,000 total.

The deduction by Sing Tao Daily reader
Yuen Cheuk-yan is similar to my physicality argument. There is an
additional piece of information that Yuen Cheuk-yan used: the third wave
departed between 530pm and 545pm, which meant that the size of the third wave
was only 1/6-th of 170,000. That was how he got to 2.17 x 170,000 +
20,000 = 389,000. The 545pm departure time for the last significant
number of marchers is not being disputed by the Civil Human Rights
Front.

As the Sing Tao Daily report said, this is elementary school mathematics and is logically
irrefutable. However, the Civil Human Rights Front is assuming an unethical
position in which they have made up their minds that they needed to reach
500,000+ and they are rationalising in other ways to get there.

After the central theoretical foundation of
their calculation had just collapsed due to an irrefutable error, they claimed
that there could have been more people who joined in the middle. In
fact, there will be conveniently enough people to reach 400,000 to 500,000.

Then they said that their calculation was
supplemented by counts from human observers, for which they did not cite the results.
How low was that number that they were
unwilling to disclose initially? The Sing Tao Daily article said that Human Rights Monitor counted 160,000
marchers, a number which the Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson does not dispute. So we are now left with the need to come up with 200,000+
phantom marchers who all joined in the middle in order to hit the production
quota. This is strongly reminescent of production statistics in the
Great Leap Forward era. This is 'fudgy' statistics, and the statistician in me finds this
appalling.

Look, this estimation business with the Civil Human
Rights Front is getting silly. Here is my recommendation for a public position:

"We thank people from different walks
of life for pointing out that we made a technical error in calculating the
crowd size. We agree that we were wrong. At this point, we
cannot definitively provide an accurate estimate based upon the data that we
have collected. All those of you who have discussed this issue would
surely recognize that there are a number of theoretical ways of estimating
crowd sizes, but they all seemed to have some kind of flaw. We will
consult with the community to find the best method of counting for future
projects, and this method is transparent and will be published beforehand in
order to solicit feedback.

Meanwhile, the precise number of marchers
is less important than the undeniable fact that the people of Hong Kong have
once again demonstrated that they wanted ... [insert list of demands] ... to
which the Hong Kong SAR and Chinese central governments are now obliged to
address."

The more they try to fudge, the greater the
loss in credibility. Ask yourself: would you want the people in the Civil Human Rights
Front to manage
the government budget? Frightening thought, isn't it? Move on already ...

The Civil Human Rights Front posted a press
release on their website dated July 4, 2004.

[translation]
Concerning the problem about the number of marchers on July 1, the Civil
Human Rights Front emphasized again: on that day, from the first arrival at
the Central Government Office to the last arrival took 4 hours; the time to
go from Victoria Park to the Central Government Office is 90 minutes.
Therefore, there were about 3 trips. According to the estimate
provided by the police to the Front of 170,000 per trip, adding people who
joined the march in the middle, we estimated that there were about 530,000
persons.

The Front's method of
calculation may contain imperfections. Therefore, the Front welcomes
other organizations to disclose their estimates and methods in order to let
the citizens decide for themselves and also for the Front to consult in the
future.

The Civil Human Rights Front seemed to be in
disarray regarding a response. On July 5, a day before the Front members
convene to
go over the issues, the following conflicting remarks were reported by Sing
Tao Daily:

Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson Hung
Ling-yu admits that the announced figure is definitely not
authoritative. She said that they will discuss the method of
calculation in tomorrow's meeting. She emphasized that the counting
done by the volunteers is reliable. She said that it is possible that
they will get more volunteers to work in the future. She admitted
frankly that the work of these volunteers was stressful, which was why there
were only a few volunteers this time. [Comment:
That is missing the point! It is not the quality or quantity of work
done by the volunteers that is the problem. Nobody is blaming the
volunteers, whose work was ignored in the 530,000 number anyway. To
arrive at the 530,000 number, they required no resources whatsoever.
They met with the police and obtained a density estimate of 170,000; they
saw that the march started at 230pm and ended at 800pm; they plugged the
information in a faulty formula and added an arbitrary 20,000 more without
any basis. The whole job can be done by one person without ever
getting out of the chair. There is no point in getting an army of
volunteers if you are going to use a bad formula that ignores the fruits of
their labor at the end.]

She said that that the Front will discuss
the problem of the march number tomorrow. But she did not directly
respond as to whether they will make a public announcement that there was a
problem with the number. She only said that if there really was a
problem with the number that needs to be publicly disclosed, then they will
discuss it. [Comment: Very circular and
confusing; lexicographic hair-splitting in the tradition of White House
spokesmen Ari Fleischer and Scott
McClelland.]

The assistant spokesperson Tam Chun-yin
said that if the error was too large, then there should be a public
announcement. [Comment: This is dodgy but
absolutely correct for public relations. Large error=bad.
Everybody agrees with that. But he is not saying what constitutes a
large error.] Tam said that the Front's method is the only
thing that they can do with the limited resources. He admits that they
did not consider the problem of density. He also said that they will
examine the methods suggested by the scholars and attempt to recalculate
using different methods. If the numbers are too different, they will
make an announcement. [Comment: Dodgy again and
quite correct for public relations. This man has a future in this business.]

Another spokesperson Rose Wu Lo-sai said that they
will not make another statement on the number again. She believes that
there is no absolutely correct method of calculation right now, so they are
not going to re-calcuate the march number. The recommendations from
the scholars can be used by citizens for reference to make their own
determinations. [Comment: Bad!
Really bad! This problem is not that there are five different ways of
estimation, each with their own minor flaws, so that it is impossible to
choose. The problem is that the Front's number is now known to be very
wrong due to an elementary school arithmetic error and therefore completely
out of line with the other numbers. The Front does not have to be
concerned about anyone else's problems with methodology or calculations, but it is
responsible for the Front's arithmetic errors.]

As for any future marches, the smart thing
for the Front to
do is to sub-contract the job to a reputatable independent professional group,
such as the Hong Kong University Department of Statistics and Actuarial
Science. Let the other guys take the heat. This is not the core
competence of the Civil Human Rights Front and has proven to be a disastrous distraction with respect to delivering the
core messages.

On July 5, 2004, in Chai Shiu-fung's column
in Sing Tao Daily, he retold the story of the reader's letter and Jackie
Hung's response. Then he added the following comments:

[translation] Actually, the question to Jackie Hung
Ling-yu was easy to answer. All she has to do is to admit the
error, and that is the best solution.

But Hung Ling-yu did not want to admit any
errors based upon several factors. First, the whole world has accepted
their 530,000 figure. To say that this number was wrong and that it
was a calculation error for an elementary school problem would be too
weird. They will become an international laughing stock and that would
be unbearable. Second, they don't know how to explain it to the
citizens. A couple of days ago, a scholar said that he estimated that
there were only 200,000 marchers and Hung Ling-yu accused him of being
irresponsible for betraying the marchers. If they now admit to
having been wrong, they are the ones who betrayed the marchers. Third,
to decrease the number of marchers by such a large amount would make people
think that there were only a few marchers and therefore dilute the 'power'
of the protest.

But Chai Shiu-fung feels that even though
this is an enormous joke, the damage would be less than if they insist on
continuing to be wrong. If I am someone who is pro-China/Hong Kong, I
would not want Hung Ling-yu and and the Civil Human Rights Front to admit
being wrong and I would want them to continue to be wrong. Conversely,
the best strategy for the Civil Human Rights Front is to admit being
wrong. 200,000 is a very big number already, and there is no need to
make it ever larger.

Chai Siu-fung will also mention that the
number of marchers was less than last year. Yet in the newspapers next
day, most of them put down 530,000 marchers underneath the headlines.
Last year, the organizers claimed only 500,000. This year, there
appeared to be fewer marchers, and yet there was a 530,000 figure. The
media simply parroted the number without any critical evaluation.

Chai Shiu-fung has chatted with his media
friends about this problem, and realized that they have a certain type of
attitude. A lot of people doubted the 530,000 figure. "But
since a lot of people were marching, I might as well as follow the people's
will. I'll take whatever the Civil Human Rights Front says and I won't
use the police estimate. This way, I won't get attacked by the
pan-democratic camp or receive complaints from readers." This is
an error of partisanship.

In the late 1950's, Mao Zedong initiated
the Great Leap Forward in China. There were scientific farmfields that
yielded ten thousand jin (a jin equals half a kilogram) of
rice per hectare. This came about under the same system of
thinking. The organizers were over their heads, the observers on the
sidelines banged gongs and drums to publicize the people's will, and a
tragedy results.

Please note carefully the discussion of
self-censorship in a democratic environment. This is every bit a tyranny
as under a dictatorship.

(Tai Kung Po) Was it an olive
branch or an unsheathed sword? By Mei Ying. July 6, 2004.

[translation] The 7/1 march
represented many demands from the citizens, not just for the double direct
elections. Does the Civil Human Rights Front and the Democratic Party
represent all of the citizens of Hong Kong? They don't respect the
China Liaison Office in Hong Kong, they don't respect the Special Administrative
Region government and they want "direct communication"
instead. Is this a three-footed stool or a four-footed stool?
They want to win votes to paralyze the SAR government and they want to use
"the will of the people" to impose on the central
government. Does this represent sincerity in communications? Was
it an olive branch or an unsheathed sword?

How many people participated in the 7/1
march? Spokesperson Hung Ling-yu originally said 200,000. Then
it was gradually raised to 250,000, then to 350,000, then to 400,000 and it
was finally announced to be 530,000.

The police said that there was 200,000
persons.

On July 2, other than the patriotic
newspapers, the other newspapers showed headlines that said 530,000 persons
attended the 7/1 march. I admired Tai Kung Po for insisting on the
truth with this unique headline: "Exaggerated numbers at the marcher
again, 160,000 became 530,000."

This author was not among the marchers
and believes that the mainstream Hong Kong public opinion is represented by
those who did nothing and did not march. But I was concerned about how
the Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson could arbitrarily increase the
numbers and subjectively make up "statistics." So I
contacted various friends until late at night, and I asked authoritative
persons to provide reliable numbers. At midnight of July 2, I obtained
the most reliable and most accurate estimate: the number of 7/1 marchers
could not be more than 200,000.

The authoritative source told me: the
police estimate could only be more, not less. The reason is very
simple: the police is responsible for ensuring the safety of the citizens,
and they cannot underestimate the number of marchers; on top of the observed
data, they needed to add another 10% to 20% in order to made sure that the
police force is adequate.

The authoritative source also told me: a
foreign news agency used advanced scientific techniques to estimate the
crowd size. At 3pm, that news agency estimated 100,000; at 4pm, it was
150,000; at 7pm, it was 200,000. The conclusion was that is was no
more than 200,000.

The authoritative person made these calculations:
the distance from the Central Government Office to Victoria Park was 5.2
kilometers. The marchers formed eight people per row, or 16 people for
two rows; people are about 30 to 40 centimeters apart; each square meter of
roadway can accommodate 32 people; if the roadway was full, there would be
160,000 persons. But the weather was hot and people were further apart
than usual. About one half or one third of the march was less
dense. "Long Hair" stood under the Goose Neck Bridge
to put on a show that caused congestion in order for the media to take films
to show the dense crowd. But for the whole trip, it would be lucky if
there were 120,000 to 130,000 marchers. When the march leaders reached
the Central Government Office, two of the six soccer fields were already
empty. Because the weather was hot, many people used umbrellas and
fanned themselves. So each soccer field was likely to have only about
6,000 to 7,000 standees. So the number of people at the rear of the
march was at most 30,000. Thus, the police estimated that the total
number of marchers from the head of the march to the tail of the march was
160,000. They then overestimated by adding another 20% in order to
make sure that they have enough police resources to maintain public order
and safety. Thus, they made the public estimate of 200,000.

The Civil Human
Rights Front reported an inflated number and most of the media used their
reported number to deceive their readers. But of the 200,000 from the police
and the 160,000 from Tai Kung Pao, which is more accurate?

On
July 3, Hong Kong University Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
senior lecturer Yip Siu-fei was interviewed by newspaper reporters and said
that the department had sent people to count the number of marchers at two
locations during the march and estimated that about 200,000 people were on
the street. This is about the same as the police estimate.
[Note: The final number by the Yip Siu-fei team would in fact be
165,000].

Thomas
Lee is an expert in satellite photo analysis. He is a visiting
lecturer teaching the Hong Kong University Department of Geography Remote
Sensing course and the Polytechnic University Geographical Positioning
Systems course. He used satellite photo analysis computer software to
analyze aerial photos taken by a newspaper, after considering light
diffraction from a typical human body. He found that there were 100
people in every one hundred square meters in the Victoria Park soccer
fields, although it could be as low as 85 people sometimes. Based upon
the assumption that the total road surface was 72,000 square meters, there
should be 72,000 persons on the roadway at 430pm on July 1. Based upon
the assumptions that each trip took 90 minutes and the march lasted 5.5
hours, excluding any people who joined in the middle, the total number of
people was 264,000 with an error rate of 15%.

Facing
the academic scholars who challenge the 530,000 number of 7/1 marchers, Hung
Ling-yu said threateningly: "These scholars ought to behave
responsibly. If they say that there were only 200,000 persons, how can
they face the citizens who marched?"

Did
Hung Lin-yu think about this?: If 530,000 and 200,000 differ by so
much, then should the scholars make a scientific analysis? Should the police
ignore the objective conditions in terms of assigning resources? All
other persons and organizations do not need to conduct any independent
investigation, because they can listen to politically motivated Civil Human
Rights Front to arbitrarily and intentionally make announcements. Whey
happened to freedom of the right to information? On July 1, the march
also included many other organizations and people who were celebrating the
return of Hong Kong and there were others who joined in the carnival
atmosphere. But after the scandal of the exaggerated number from the
organizers, the word is that the number does not matter and the important
thing is that the central government and the SAR government must respond to
the demands of the citizen. Whether it was the exaggerated number, or
the scandalous attempt to cover up the exaggerated number, one thing is
clear: the opposition is waving an olive branch on one hand b saying
"to communicate not for the sake of communicate," to
"converse directly without any pre-conditions" and to "let
Hong Kong and Beijing cooperate fully"; on the other hand, they are
organizing large marches, they are exaggerating the attendance, they are
using "the will of the people" to intimate the SAR government and
the central government to make the National People's Congress to change
their decision about direct elections in 07/08, by "trying to make
possible what is impossible."

The
7/1 march represented many demands from the citizens, not just for the
double direct elections. Does the Civil Human Rights Front and the
Democratic Party represent all of the citizens of Hong Kong? They
don't respect the China Liaison Office in Hong Kong, they don't respect the
Special Administrative Region government and they want "direct
communication" instead. Is this a three-footed stool or a
four-footed stool? They want to win votes to paralyze the SAR
government and they want to use "the will of the people" to impose
on the central government. Does this represent sincerity in
communications? Was it an olive branch or an unsheathed sword?

(Sing
Tao Daily) The Front Will Meet Today to Discuss the March
Number. July 6, 2004.

[translation] The Civil Human Rights Front was challenged
about its method of estimating the 7/1 march participants and will hold a
meeting today to decide whether they need to make a statement. Yip Kwok-him of the DAB believes that if an error was made, then they must state
the correct figure. Some scholars believe that the Front's method was
problematic, but the Front can be excused for making errors due to their
limited resouces. Similarly, the police's estimate is also imprecise,
so that both sides must offer explanations.

The Civil Human Rights will hold a meeting
to evaluate the 7/1 march. They will discuss the disputed march number
during the meeting. The Front's assistant spokesperson Tam Chun-yin
was just the estimated number of people on the day of the march, and they
will discuss today if it is necessary to make a clarification. Front
member Chuang Yiu-kwong suggests that they can conduct a survey as
remedy. If 20% of the people said that they participated, then based
upon the population of Hong Kong , it means that about 1 million people
marched.

Chinese University of Hong Koong Sociology
Department Associate Professor Chan Kin-man, who is also a member of the
Democratic Development Network, believes that there was actually fewer than
530,000 people, and he believes that the method of calculation has problems
even though he understands that the Front has limited resources. He
says that the Front should not "deceive themselves even if they are not
to be blamed." He believes that it takes a lot of resources to
obtain the march number, so that an error is not a serious matter.

The Front's Lee Chuk-yan pointed out that
"number is in the people's heart" and they will not revisit the
number. But they may examine various methods to see what they should
do in the future. The Front's Choi Yiu-cheung was responsible last
year for announcing the march number and he said that they counted the
marchers at three different locations, and they ended up using the 500,000
found at Wanchai. There may have been more people who joined the march
later on, so that they claimed that there were more than 500,000
people. He would not criticize the method used this time, but he
respects and supports the number announced by the Front.

Democratic Party vice-chairman Ho Chun-yan
still insists that the method of calculation was reasonable, and said that
they understated last year's number. Democratic Party's Cheung
Man-kwong said that the number is unimportant, because the important thing
is to listen the voice of the citizen. People should be more
open-minded, and the Front and the scholars can discuss the methods of
calculation.

DAB former chairman Tsang Yuk-sing, also a
legco member, said that the organizers wanted to get a bigger number than
last year, so they "exaggerated" the number. But he says
that it is up to the organizers to decide whether they need to
clarify. Another legco member Cheng Yiu-tong said that it does not
matter how many people were there; there were a lot of people out there and
the SAR government needs to consider their sentiments.

Some people just don't get it yet, because
they are confusing various issues.

First, let me distinguish between the
calculation error and the defective method. This year's method was based
upon a density provided by the police (170,000 persons on the roadway), the
observed time to go from start to finish (90 minutes) and the start and end
times (230pm and 800pm). Then the calculation proceeded to make an
elementary school-type error by assuming that there was time for 3 trips and
thus they obtained 530,000. This is wrong. This is so wrong that
an elementary school student would know. They cannot let the calculation
error stand because it is scandalous. I would suggest that they re-do
the calculation and the reasoning by the Sing Tao reader is fair and will lead to
a revised number of 389,000.

The method is defective because it depends on
the density provided by the police (170,000), and the scholars have evidence
that the density may be lower. On this matter, the Front does not have
to answer for it. They will simply state their methodology and the
number is whatever comes out of this set of assumptions, which had seemed fair
and reasonable at the time that they designed it and was done in good
faith. The Front got the density from an authoritative source -- the
police -- and everything else (start and finish times, travel times) is not in
dispute. If scholars don't agree with the density assumption, they can
make their own adjustments and different scholars seem to have different
opinions. The Front's number can stay with their set of assumptions. However, that calculation error
above is a different story and
cannot stay.

Second, the complaint about limited resources
is lame. How many people did the Hong Kong University team have?
They got 11 students and faculty members to work half a day without pay.
The data entry and tabulations are also negligible. They may have done
600+ interviews, but the survey response is only yes/no and all the responses
could have been written down on one piece of paper as Y's and N's and then counted up.
If the Front doesn't feel comfortable, they could have picked up the phone and
asked someone at a university to organize a volunteer student team for an
interesting and meaningful project.

Third, forget about doing that survey
afterwards. If you thought that getting eleven people to work half a day
was beyond the means of your limited resources, you should see the bill for
conducting several hundred interviews properly (note: you can get it done a lot
cheaper by doing it improperly, of course). Another big problem is that
the population has been contaminated by the extended coverage of the dispute over the
number, and there is no guarantee that you will get truthful answers.

Of course, everybody agrees that the number
doesn't really matter because we all saw a mass of humanity out there.
But this is not the point for now. At issue here is the credibility of
the Civil Human Rights Front. If they decline to withdraw the 530,000
number, what is a person supposed to think? Here are the two
choices:

On one hand, these people
are so dense that they can't understand the simple calculation error. If
an elementary school student makes this mistake, he/she gets zero points; if
the Civil Human Rights Front makes this same mistake, it is alright.
What will we tell our kids?

On
the other hand, these people knew that they had made a calculation error but they
prefer to let the big (and erroneous) number stand, either for political
advantage or to avoid public embarrassment.

In either case, do you want this
kind of people to be directly elected to handle the government budget and
other affairs?

The next article is a report on the outcome
of the Civil Human Rights Front meeting on Tuesday.

[translation] The 7/1 march
organizer Civil Rights Human Rights indirectly admitted that there was an
error in the calculation of the number of marchers that day, but they
insisted that the number of 530,000 will not change. They welcome
people to propose new methods of calculation. The Civil Rights Human
Rights admitted that its method of calcuatlion "definitely has
imperfections" and therefore welcome other organizations to publish
estimates and methods in order to let the citizens decide on their own.

On the day of July 1, the Civil Human
Rights Front calcuated 530,000 persons, based upon people departing for 5.5
hours allowing for 3 waves. According to Hong Kong University graduate
Yuen Chi-keung and Hong Kong University Department of Statistics and
Actuarial Science Senior Lecturer Yip Siu-fei, this formula double-counted the
last wave and mistakenly turned two waves into three waves. At
yesterday's meeting of the Civil Human Rights Front, they revised the
original formula. They used as their basis the fact that there were 5.5
hours between the time that the first marcher left and the time that the
last marcher finished. But Civil Humans Right Front refused to
formally admit that the original method of calculation was wrong.

According to the Civil Human Rights
Front, the difference between the first and last start times was 4 hours and
trip lasts 90 minutes, therefore there was almost 3 waves. Based upon
a density of 170,000 per wave, plus the additional people who joined in
midway, they therefore estimate the total to be about 530,000.

The Civil Human Rights Front also issued
a statement to explain the new calculation. They re-emphasized that
the Hong Kong SAR government must respond to the marchers. "Under
the hot sun of July 1, many citizens still got out on the street. This
should be treated seriously by the government and society, instead of
fighting over the number of particpants that day."

Concerning the new method of calculation
by the Civil Human Rights Front, Lo Chi-kwong who studied economics and
statistics, says that the method of calculation already includes those
people who joined in the middle. To be more precisely, based upon the
logic of the Civil Human Rights Front, the number of marchers should be
450,000 and not 530,000.

Another mathematician who does not wish
to disclose his name said that the Front's new calculation did not
double-count. But if this formula is used, then the route should have
been packed full with people at 630pm and the last one will reach the
Central Government Office at 800pm. Actually, the last group of
marchers left Victoria Park at 545pm, and at 630p, much of the road from
Victoria Park didn't have people. Therefore, whether this hypothesis
is accepted or another hypothesis that the trip time is 2 hours instead of
90 minutes, the number of waves is two instead of being near three.

Civil Human Rights Front organizer Rose Wu Lo-sai
was asked after the meeting about whether they are firm on the 530,000
figure and
their method of calculation. She said, "There is no possiblity of
overturning the 530,000. We have calculated the number from a sound
basis. The public can decide." She admits that the Front's
method has imperfections, included not determining the density carefully so
that they may not achieved the maximum density of 170,000 given by the
police. But because the density varied at different times in different
places, it is impossible to accurately calculate the number of people on
that day.

She emphasized that the Civil Human
Rights Front has disclosed their method of calculation and the
assumpitons. They have discussed the matter and they believed that the
530,000 is an accurate figure. This figure was based upon the
calculation by the Front and can be used by everyone as reference.
Different organizations have their own methods, and the citizens have a
right to choose to believe or not. The Civil Human Rights Front will
consult other methods.

When asked whether this number will be
believed by the public, she said, "Whether or not to believe the
530,000 number will be decided by the public. Why do you feel that the
public may not believe it? Why don't you go ask the public? Why
don't you go ask the marchers? Are the 200,000 claimed by some
scholars just as accurate? Every scholar can have a point of view, but
no one can offer the most accurate number. The march number is subject
to variation, and there will be differences."

Human Rights Monitor made a count on the
day of the march and obtained 160,000. Yesterday, Law Yuk-kai said
that he did not want to be tangled in the problem of the number of
marchers.

Let me summarize this. The premise of
the decision is summarized by the statement, "There is no possibility of
overturning the 530,000." So the only question was how to get
there. The problem that they faced is that the actual time frame for
departing the march is only 4 hours, not the 5.5 hours that they originally
assumed. They had assumed that there would be time enough for three
waves of people taking 90 minutes each to finish, and they threw in an extra
20,000 for those who joined midway. Thus 170,000 x 3 + 20,000 =
530,000. Within the framework, there were two ways to revise the formula
in order to achieve 530,000.

Plan A. There are only 4 / 1.5 = 2.67
waves of people. In order to get to 510,000, the density of the march
must be increased from 170,000 to 190,000. Then 2.67 x 190,000 +
20,000 = 507,000 + 20,000 = 527,000. Done deal, except there is no
reason to assume that the density is 190,000. If anything, the
scholars are suggesting that the density was lower. It
was time for Plan B.

Plan B. There were only 4 / 1.5 =
2.67 waves of people. Therefore, the number of marchers is 2.67 x
170,000 = 454,000. However, instead of 20,000 marchers who joined
midway, there were actually 76,000 who joined in the middle. The total
is now 454,000 + 76,000 = 530,000, same as before.

This new and improved 530,000 is said to be
reliable, accurate, precise and all that. Dear reader, do you buy it?

There has been a reference to a "tree
planting" problem given in elementary schools in Hong Kong. Here
is the statement of the problem: suppose that you plant trees one
meter apart in a row. If you planted ten trees, what is the distance
between the first and tenth tree? The correct answer is 9
meters. The Civil Human Rights Front gave 10 meters as the answer
originally, which would receive zero marks in an elementary school
arithmetic class. But the Civil Human Rights Front is determined to
get an answer of 10 meters. So they invented an eleventh tree and now
the answer is 10 meters.

What will we tell our children? As
for me, I am between laughing and crying. Most
of the rest of Hong Kong, I suspect, are embracing the new and improved
530,000.

P.S. The unnamed mathematician
pointed out that the the number of departures had effectively dropped to
zero by 545pm, so that there was only a 3.25 hour window. The old
calculation would have said that the march number is 3.25 / 1.5 x 170,000 +
20,000 = 369,000 + 20,000 = 389,000. This calculation reflects the real
conditions on the ground. But by now you know what to do. There must
have been 161,000 people who joined the march in the middle so that the
total number of marchers is 369,000 + 161,000 = 530,000. This number
is reliable, accurate, precise and all that, just as before. Blah,
blah, blah. We must not let the truth change the magic number of
530,000.

Why did the Civil Human Rights Front feel
that it cannot change the 530,000 number? There are two reasons.

First, the logically consistent number would habe been 2.67 x 170,000 + 20,000
= 474,000 because it corrects an arithmetic error while preserving all other
previous assumptions. However, it is less than last year's 500,000
number and may reflect an erosion of support. This is off message.

Second, if they issue a press release that acknowledges the well-known
arithmetic error but keeping the 530,000 number intact, the media
stenographers may deem this not newsworthy and continue to use the 530,000
number from there on.

Actually, they were better than that. The
decision had been made before the meeting anyway. On July 4, 2004, the
Front posted this message on their website:

[translation] Concerning the
problem about the number of marchers on July 1, the Civil Human Rights Front
emphasized again: on that day, from the first arrival at the Central
Government Office to the last arrival took 4 hours; the time to go from
Victoria Park to the Central Government Office is 90 minutes.
Therefore, there were about 3 trips. According to the estimate
provided by the police to the Front of 170,000 per trip, adding people who
joined the march in the middle, we estimated that there were about 530,000
persons.

This press release is phrased
such that it can be interpreted to describe both the old and new
calcuations. It says "approximately" three trips, which could
mean either the 3.0 or 2.67 and it says "a number of people who joined
the march in the middle" which could mean either the 20,000 or
76,000. In fact, there was no acknowledgement of any error, so this should
really make the media stenographers happy.

[translation] When the Civil Human
Rights Front announced a figure of 530,000 for the 7/1 march, it was
criticized by various experts and intellectuals. Yesterday, the Front
insisted that they were not wrong and they changed their calculation formula
in order to reach the pre-determined number of 530,000. The Front did
not have the moral courage to admit the mistake, and their announced number
has lost crediblity totally. The only thing left to do is to set up a
different estimation system for future activities.

When criticized by outsiders, the Civil
Human Fights Front refused to even acknowledge that they made an error in
elementary school arithmetic. Worse yet, they distorted the
data. They were determined to reach the 530,000 figure and they
customized a new formula to get that number. The result is that they
will be subject to more challenges.

Think about it: the Civil Human Rights
Front originally used the method of "planting trees" to estimate
the number of marchers. The problem is stated as follows: suppose that
you plant trees one meter apart in a row. If you planted ten trees,
what is the distance between the first and tenth tree? The correct
answer is 9 meters. The Civil Human Rights Front forgot to subtract
the first tree and committed an error often made by elementary school
students. This calculation error was pointed out many times by the
electronic media since the first day and is well known by now. The
Front did not come out and say anything. The error is known to
everyone, from university teachers to elementary school teachers. But
the new calculation yields a number that is identical to the original
number. How can this be possible? How can this be justified to
the citizens who went out on the street under the hot sun?

To refuse to correct the error is not
the same as changing reality. Now that the Civil Human Rights Front is
insisting on the 530,000 number, there are at least several results.
One is that the related number has become a reference. Any other
opinion based upon this number will be distorted. This is like cutting
off part of your foot to fit the shoe that you bought.

Another problem is whether the media
should continue to use this dubious and flawed number. On the day
after the march, most foreign media such as The Asian Wall Street Journal
did not use the 530,000 figure. The reports stated that the police
estimated 200,000 and the Civil Human Rights Front claimed 530,000.
They were very careful. Now that the number from the Civil Human
Rights Font is obviously wrong and improper, the media are faced with the
difficult choice of whether to continue to use the number.

By insisting on being wrong, the Civil
Human Rights Front highlighted the problem of whether a number provided by
organizers should be accepted. This creates the need to set up a trustworthy
system of estimation in the future. In the past, every single event
that involved more than 10,000 persons was subject to dispute with
significant differences between police and organizer estimates. Some
media have joked that a more reliable number is obtained by obtain the
average of the two numbers. This is unscientific, but it reflects the
difficulty that the media faced in reporting the crowd size.

The dispute over the 530,000 number does
not involve the demands being made the marchers. No matter whether the
number is the 200,000 estimated by the scholars or the 530,000 cited by the
Front, the opinion of the people will be respected. In a quality
society, any person's opinion --- as long as it is fair and just --- should
be respected. Confucius says that when it comes to a matter of
principle, one would go regardless of the number. Whether the
march had 200,000 or 300,000 people is immaterial. The reason that the
intellectuals are firmly pursuing the issue of the estimation of the number of
marchers is that they insist on and they respect the facts. Some other
pro-democratic persons also offer other estimates and methods for the same
reasons. We hope that the Civil Human Rights Front will recognize
their error.

The following opinion
column by Chai Shiu-fung appeared in Sing Tao Daily on July 8, 2004.

[translation] The Civil Human Rights
Front held a meeting last night and decided not to change the 530,000
participant figure for the 7/1 march. They changed the formula,
skirted around the arithmetic error and calculated "anew" the
530,000 figure. Thus, they denied the 170,000 to 260,000 figures
obained by scholars at various universities. The Front gave an
astonishing display of how politics overpowered scholarship.

Chai Shiu-fung has spoken to various
people about this hot subject. We all believe that they ought to count
whatever was there and not to make it as large as they want. We all
shake our heads and sign at what the Front did. We felt that they
turned a good thing into a bad thing. A well-place person in politics
also offered another viewpoint that I want to share with everyone.

He believes that the Front magnified this
year's number to make it larger than last year's. If it were really
true, then that is what it is. If they exaggerated, then they have not
thought that this Great Leap Forward may bring negative consequences.

There are many provinces and cities in
mainland China which disagree with the gentle way in which the central
government has handled the Hong Kong problem. Hong Kong does not
contribute taxes, they have no military expenditures and the central
government gives them the 'solo travel' and CEPA. All the goodies go
to Hong Kong. Even in the Pearl River Delta cooperation project among
nine provinces, Hong Kong and Macau were included. Objectively, this
is strangling the development of the container shipment and air transport
sectors in Guangdong province, which was told to yield to Hong Kong.
One after another benefit goes to Hong Kong, to the dissatisfaction of the
mainlanders.

There were quite a lot of people in this
year's march, indicating that citizens were unhappy abou thte denial of
direct elections and the perfromance of the government. The march
slogans were more moderate. Fewer people marched this year. With
the soft approach by the central government, there should have been some
lowering of the 'temperature.' This should have been good for Hong
Kong politics and economy.

Politically, since the rapprochement
between the central government and the opposition was effective, the central
government could continue to communicate and the opposition can gain more
democracy through this communication. Economically, since the central
government proved that its economic offerings to Hong Kong were working,
they can continue to send more offerings to Hong Kong's benefit.

But the Civil Human Rights Front then
'forcibly' inflated the march number and said that even more people marched
than last year. They don't know that this has a counterproductive
effect. The provincial authorities are now saying that since the
central government's soft approach had not effect, they should stop
benefitting Hong Kong. There are quite a few people who support this
idea, especially those in the local governments. If the central government
gets tough with Hong Kong, they will be the beneficiaries.

Just because a large number was reported
does not mean that all the pan-democratic people are happy. Chai
Shiu-fung heard that some of the doves in the democratic camp were
worried. First, there is the matter of trust. Then they also saw
that some of the slogans asked the central government not to use economic
incentives to trade for political compliance. So they wre concerned
that this attitude of ignoring economic welfare would touch a nerve among
citizens.

It is not know how the central government
is interpreting the news of the 7/1 march. The opposition (especially
the radicals among them) obviously believes that the bigger the number, the
better it is for them because it means more pressure on the central
government.

A more pragmatic person knows that this
theory that bigger is better is futile. The better approach is to now
how to 'talk and fight' at the same time.

Hong Kong people are annoyed at the brazen
way that the July 1 march organizers exaggerated the number of protesters
and the motives behind their action, Hong Kong Commercial Daily said in an
editorial published Wednesday. Excerpts follow:

Some days have passed since this year's
July 1 mass rally, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government
has started to respond in full swing to the myriad demands expressed by the
participants.

On the afternoon of July 1, CHRF, as
organizer of the rally, amended several times its estimation of the total
number of participants, within a short span of two hours, and finally
announced excitedly the huge figure of 530,000. This number subsequently
became the standard version, widely spread by many local and international
media as "fact". But is it really the fact?

Fortunately, there are still academics in
Hong Kong who are not willing to believe blindly in others. They want to
respect science and rationality, and persevere in the pursuit for truth.
These scholars, through on-the-spot observations and serious research, were
able to blow the lie sky high and recover the truth.

Among them, researchers of the University
of Hong Kong formed a special statistical group to carry out a
"precise" calculation; and they concluded that the protest march
figure should lie somewhere between 140,000 and 190,000. Some academics used
satellite photographs for analysis and came up with the higher number of
260,000.

For their internal use in assisting in the
maintenance of public order and other works, the police did their own
estimation and placed the figure at less than 200,000.

In fact, there was no significant
difference between the results of the various researches and estimations.
Only the CHRF dared to ignore the facts and pronounce to the world that the
total number of participants at the rally was 530,000. Were they not trying
to cheat the world?

We acknowledge that all statistical figures
have a certain range of error, but there can never be such a magnitude as in
CHRF's estimation. Its exaggeration exercise was undoubtedly an attempt to
fool public opinion, the international community as well as Hong Kong
people.

CHRF has applied this trick time and again
and has never been tired of it. This time it just went too far. One may
wonder why the organization was not afraid of offending the public or having
its lies exposed, and what its motives and purposes were in risking the
tainting of its credibility and integrity.

Judging from the subsequent moves of the
"pro-democracy" camp, it is not difficult to find the answer. Once
the rally was over, the "democrats" put forward the demand of
revoking the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress on the 2007 and 2008 elections. It looks like they were using
"public opinion" in Hong Kong to exert pressure on the central
government.

As a matter of fact, any observer of the
July 1 rally would agree that the participants' demands were wide-ranging
and manifold. Only part of the attendees advocated a radical pace of
progress for realizing universal suffrage.

Denying the facts, the
"democrats" have blown up the attendance on the one hand and
simplified public opinion into a request for universal suffrage in 2007 and
2008 on the other.

What they were after was clear as daylight
- increasing their political chips and influence and, certainly, gaining
advantage in the Legislative Council election in September. When we see the
true nature of the rally behind the boisterous slogan chanting, it is not
hard to understand the "democrats'" hidden motive in exaggerating
the figure.

In fact, the government should listen
sincerely to participants' demands and grievances and take follow-up actions
no matter how large the crowd. It should do so even if only a few thousand
showed up.

Anybody who is frank and aboveboard and
committed to doing what is good for Hong Kong does not need to resort to
deception over the attendance figure. Since the CHRF has admitted its
mistake in head-counting, why does it not step forward to correct its error
in front of the world? If it insists on continuing with the fraud, its
effort will backfire and it will lose all credibility.

[translation] "A
person can fool people some of the time; a person can even fool some people
all of the time; but a person cannot fool all the people all of the
time." This famous saying of deceased American President Abraham
Lincoln applies to the 530,000 number published by the Civil Human Rights
Front for this year's 7/1 march.

One after another,
experts have published estimates for crowd sizes that are vastly
different. This has made the 530,000 figure a lie that is painful for
supporters and delightful for opponents. The latest person to
penetrate the lie is Hong Kong University Social Sciences Research Centre
John Bacon-Shone. He estimated that the number of persons who passed
under the pedestrian bridge at Admiralty to be just over 110,000. When
this newspaper interviewed him yesterday, he flat out denied that 530,000
was possible. In fact, he even doubt that 200,000 was possible.

Bacon-Shone headed the
Faculty of Social Sciences at Hong Kong University during the British
colonial era. After the return of Hong Kong to China, he was a member
of the Hong Kong government's Central Policy Unit. He is known for
rigorous scholarship, and would not twist the facts for political reasons at
the risk of ruining his own academic reputation and authority. His
method involves counting the number of marchers through videotape review and
he stated that he does not include those who quit the march midway.
Anyone who doubts the count can watch the videotapes and count for
themselves. This number is consistent with that obtained by another
Hong Kong University scholar who also estimated the number of people who
left or joined the march midway. The various evidence suggests that
the related figures are highly reliable. Bacon-Shone published this
number in the interest of truth from a research point of view. It is
credible that his motive is not to serve politics or attack democracy.

In response to the
goodwilled persistence of the academics, the Civil Human Rights Front has
adopted an ostrich strategy. They twisted their flawed formula to
"validate" the claimed 530,000. In the face of the solid
calculations from the academics, the Front did not clarify the errors.
Instead, they said that the citizens can decide for themselves. This
is an irresponsible action. The 530,000 number was published by the
Civil Human Rights Front. Quite a few media and democrats treated this
number as reliable. Now they only say to "decide for
yourselves" and "the truth is in your minds", then who is
going to be responsible for issuing the corrections? The international
parties do not pay high attention to what is going on in Hong Kong and they
had received the incorrect information. If no one informs them about
the truth, the error will continue to circulate. So this is no longer
a pure problem about a number.

Moreover, if there is
another similar event next year and the organizers uses a more scientific
approach to estimate the number, the number may drop at least 50%.
Does this mean that the organizers' support has fallen sharply? Or
will they then and only then tell the truth about this year's number?
If so, what happens to public trust?

Certainly foreign
correspondents in Hong Kong did not believe the Civil Human Rights Front's
number from the beginning, and so they avoided using the number in the
headlines. Certainly provincial and municipal governments on mainland
China were also astonished, and they used this to support the assertion that
the central government was wasting their resources to favor Hong Kong.
Now that this number is found to be in error, if society continues to turn a
blind eye to this egregiously wrong number and let the lie persist, it will
do serious damage to the honest reputation of Hong Kong. To be
unscientific and unprogressive is contrary to the image of the world city.

To respect the facts
and to ensure that an accurate number exists in history, the Civil Human
Rights Front ought to issue an correction. For future large-scale
events, the organizers or the government should consider using an
independent third-party to make an authoritative estimation. This will
provide truly valuable information for the police to maintain public order,
for society to gauge public opinion and for the historical record.

(Sing Tao) Being too
"hot-headed" may not be good for democracy. Columnist Chai
Chi-fung. July 16, 2004.

[translation] The world is
unpredictable. The hot topic from this year's 7/1 march was not about
the wishes of the marchers, but the number of marchers. A few days
ago, Chai Chi-fung attended a group dinner. Nobody there believed the
530,000 claimed by the Civil Human Rights Front. At the same time,
they were surprised by the 100,000+ figures from the academics.

The attendees can be described to be the
knowledgeable elite. According to them, they don't feel that there
were 530,000 people but they did not imagine that there would only be 100,000
something after detailed calculations. It is likely that people do not
have any ideas about crowd sizes. So Chai Chi-fung asked them,
"If the academics did not come out to announce their numbers, what
would you think?" One of them who is a frequent visitor of the
Jockey Club said that he would believe the police figure.

Everyone asked him to explain. He
replied that the Jockey Club holds large events which involve massive human
flows. Based upon what he knew, the police follows international
standards in crowd control. It is the same for demonstrations as for
any other activities. He believes that the police have their own
professional requirements and they don't "make up numbers" for
political reasons.

After hearing this explanation, Chai
Chi-fung thought it was reasonable. This shows that the Hong Kong
people are clear-headed. They observe some things and they know what
is going on. But in order to avoid headaches, they won't say so
publicly. It is the same thing with the number of marchers this
time. If the academics did not come out to speak the truth, he would
not have said anything so as not to be criticized for being an enemy of
democracy.

The Civil Human Rights Front exaggerated
the number this time. Originally, they had the chance to be like
George Washington and correct the mistake early on. But the organizers
did not use the opportunity. Instead, they held a meeting and came up
with a different calculation to cover up the mistake in the 530,000
figure. This created more doubts, and motivated the academics to speak
the truth and the outside world to get more concerned.

Actually, the academics also estimated
crowd sizes last year, but they did not receive sufficient attention.
Instead, they were challenged at every step. This year, if the Civil
Human Rights Front did not commit the blatant error for the "tree
planting" problem in elementary school arithmetic, the authoritative
voices of the academics might have been shouted down too.

The Civil Human Rights Front missed
their golden opportunity for correcting the number. Yesterday, a
newspaper came out in an editorial to admit that the newspaper had made an error
in calculation. That error also involved an error for the "tree
planting" problem. After the error was pointed out by an
academic, that newspaper admitted its error and they acted like George
Washington. Now, the pressure is turned on the Civil Human Rights
Front. If they only knew that this is how it would turn out, they
might not have insisted on this in the beginning.

Pro-democracy supporters obviously
cannot be happy about the error made by the Civil Human Rights Front.
But we can be more optimistic generally. This mistake should pour some
cold water on those hot-heads who are trying to push ahead. It will
also help for a more rational discourse that incorporate multiple
viewpoints. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the development of
the Hong Kong political system.

(Sing
Tao) The Civil Human Rights Front should lay down the burden of
the 530,000 number. July 16, 2004.

[translation] Academic scholars
from a number of different universities conducted research and pointed out
that the number of 7/1 marchers is far less than the 530,000 claimed by the
Civil Human Rights Front. Cheung Bing-liang, who initiated the Joint
Declaration of Core Values, believes that the CHRF should not have to
conduct political negotiations or otherwise bear the burden over the
number. They should just respect the results coming from the scholars
and no longer insist on the 530,000 figure. He pointed out that
non-government organizations' greatest asset in winning trust is being
unbiased and not based upon "being able to mobilize enough people to
show strength." Similarly, the scholars will not sacrifice the
scientific principles because they sympathesize with democracy.

The estimates from Hong Kong University
Department of Statistics and Actual Science senior lecturer Yip Siu-fei,
Hong Kong University Social Sciences Research Centre director John
Bacon-Shone and Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme director Chung
Ting-yiu together with scholars from the Polytechnic University and the
Chinese University of Hong Kong all range between 110,000 and 210,000,
and quite far away from the 530,000 insisted by the Civil Human Rights
Front.

New Force Net president Cheung
Bing-liang, who is the City University Public and Social Administration
professor who initiated the Joint Declaration of Core Values, believed that
the Civil Human Rights Front did not intentionally "exaggerate"
the number when they claimed 530,000 initially. Since they had limited
resources, they used the 170,000 density figure from the police as the basis
to infer the number of marchers. The initial formula used by the Civil
Human Rights Front contained an "tree planting problem" error and
they had to make an adjustment. This shows that they were not
well-versed in statistics.

By comparison, the estimates by the
academic scholars were based upon video tapes, aerial photos and
supplementary surveys, and these are more realistic numbers.

He said that everybody knows that
different scholars use different methods but all of those methods are more
detailed than the one used by the Civil Human Rights Front, which ought to
respect their results. "The public knows how many people are out
there. They know which method is more reliable. There is no need
for the Civil Human Rights Front to accept any number. This will be
resolved by public debate."

He believes that the Civil Human Rights
Front does not need to insist on or protect the 530,000 figure. They only
need to explain the original formula and the reasons, and to acknowledge
that this method is not as accurate as those of the academics. This is
different from saying that the academics' methods are just as accurate (or
inaccurate) as the one used by the Civil Human Rights Front.

He pointed out that the Civil Human
Rights Front is a non-governmental organization which does not have to bear
any burden or to conduct political negotiations over a number or to measure
success on the basis of the number of marchers. The Civil Human Rights
Front is just a platform to permit citizens to express their desires.

When asked if the current dispute over
the number of marchers would affect the trustworthiness of the Civil Human
Rights Front in the future, Cheung Bing-liang did not reply directly.
He emphasized that the greatest asset for trustworthiness for a
non-governmental organization is the unbiasedness. It is not a matter
of "mobilizing enough people in a show of force", just as the
academic scholars would not sacrifice the scientific spirit because they
sympathesize with democracy.

Up to the deadline, we have not been
able to contact Rose Wu Lo-sai, the founder of the Civil Human Rights Front.
The Democracy Development Net is a member of the Civil Human Rights Front
and its president Chu Yiu-ming believes that the number of attendees at
marches and assemblies have always been a problem over the past 10 or more
years. Each time, there is a discrepancy between the organizers'
numbers and the police estimates. But the discrepancy was especially
large, which made it a more sensitive subject. He was unable to
respond as to whether the Civil Human Rights Front ought to acknowledge the
"tree planting problem" error. But he believes that it would
be hard for the Civil Human Rights Front to say anything more about the
number of marchers. He said that it was enough for each party to say
how they found what they got. Besides, it was impossible to recount
the number of marchers. He hopes that some day, the parties will agree
upon a method of estimation before another march.

[translation] There is a common
saying: "The funeral lantern has exaggerated numbers." That
is obviously not a nice thing to say. The citizens who participated in
the 7/1 march were exercising their rights and should not be
reproached. But the march organization -- the Civil Human Rights Front
-- for undisclosed reasons that they need to please their masters exercised
the "numbers on the funeral lantern" to inflate the number of
marchers without bound. Numerous academic experts have used scientific
methods to refuse the number. The so-called "530,000" has
not become a lie and a laughing stock.

The exaggeration of the number of
marchers by the CHRF was neither negligence nor negligible. According
to the figures from the CHRF, there were 500,000 marchers last 7/1, and this
increased to 530,000 this year. This proves that popular 'displeasure'
and 'anger' have not lessened but in fact increased. This proves that
the efforts by the central government to turn around the Hong Kong economy
were "ineffective" and that the people of Hong Kong only want
direct elections in 07/08. By repeating the number themselves with the
collaboration of various media and radio programs, they did a Goebbels:
"A lie repeated one hundred times becomes the truth." The
"530,000" shows up in the newspapers and radio programs every day,
and soon some citizens begin to believe it and society becomes more divided
than ever.

At the same time, the
"530,000" is not only everywhere in Hong Kong but some western
media and politicians also cite the figure and spread it around. Very
soon, it becomes fact and "the whole world" believes that 530,000
citizens got out on the street to protest against the government. They
will lose confidence in investing, living or traveling to Hong Kong.
They also lose confidence in the idea of "one country, two
systems."

Therefore, the so-called
"530,000" issue is not just a matter of accurate
calculation. It is a man-made "political target number" that
is a propaganda tool used to divide society and attack the "one
country, two systems" concept.

The Hong Kong University scholar John
Bacon-Shone made scientific detailed calculations and then declared that the
number of 7/1 marchers should be between 105,000 and 120,000. A number
of other experts also estimated numbers that are 100,000+, and far form the
"530,000" claimed by the CHRF.

No doubt, as some people pointed out,
even if only 100,000 plus people marched on 7/1, it is still not a small a
number and their demands and discontent requires the attention of the
government. That is reasonable. The SAR government should pay
attention even if the number of marchers was smaller than 100,000
plus. This is not a question of measuring the number of people and the
voice of their shouts, and to ignore them if they don't shout loud
enough. But the problem is not that the government is ignoring the
demands of the marchers. The problem is that the organizers are
exaggerating the number. They are lying. When their errors were
pointed out by scholars, they refuse to admit the error and changed the
subject instead. This irresponsible attitude makes people angry.
It is not acceptable for the citizens to be used as "political funeral
lanterns."

More than two weeks after the July 1
protest march, debate continues to rage over the number of people who took
to the streets. Different
sets of figures have been provided by academics who assessed the crowd
strength at between 105,000 and 210,000.

The organiser of the
rally, the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which estimated the turnout at
530,000 on July 1, still stands by its count. But the police say
around 200,000 marchers participated in the rally.

The size of the turnout is important
because a large crowd would heighten Beijing's fears that demand for
democracy could spill over to the mainland. It is also seen as a barometer
for how pro- democracy politicians will fare in the Legislative Council
elections in September.

Dr John Bacon-Shone, director of the Social
Sciences Research Centre of the Hong Kong University, placed the figure at
between 105,000 and 120,000, with 112,000 the most likely number.
However, a group of statisticians and pollsters from Chinese University,
Hong Kong University and Polytechnic University, who conducted a separate
count, said that between 180,000 and 210,000 people joined the march.

This same group of academics, which
includes Hong Kong University pollster Robert Chung, had also estimated the
turnout at the first July 1 mass rally last year. Its figure last year of
420,000 to 500,000 marchers was close to the estimate by the CHRF then of
over half a million.

The methods used by the different parties
to arrive at the protest size involved counting the number of people walking
past a given area within a certain period of time and multiplying the figure
by the duration of the march.

The rally started at 2.30pm at Victoria
Park in Causeway Bay and ended at 8pm at Central Government Offices, more
than 3km away. Counting was complicated by the fact that several
hundred joined the rally mid-way while others dropped out before reaching
the destination. The marchers were protesting for a number of causes
including the state of the territory's governance, universal suffrage in
2007-2008 and unemployment.

Just how many turned out has been a hot
topic on radio talk shows and in newspapers.

A male listener of a radio talk programme
suggested asking the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC). This is
because participants most likely travelled to the rally by train since buses
were diverted. However, an MTRC spokesman said it did not have
passenger throughput details for individual stations.

Another caller said the turnout was not
important. He said: 'What matters will be how voters cast their ballots in
September.' He was referring to the Legislative Council elections on
Sept 12 when electors are expected to vent their dissatisfaction with the
administration by voting for pro-democracy candidates.

In its editorial yesterday, the Hong Kong
Economic Times said: 'The fact that about 200,000 people took to the streets
in 34 deg C heat is already an extremely serious warning, requiring the
central government and the Hong Kong government to reflect on why public
sentiment is so stormy.' But it also warned that exaggerating the size
of the march could lead to a misreading of the public mood by the
pro-democracy camp.

[translation] Different countries and
places in the world have their own way and focus for doing things.
But when these goals are exaggerated and inflated, that are turned into
sacred objects which must be obtained by any means. In the United
States, the sacred goal is anti-terrorism; in Taiwan, the sacred goal is
to "love Taiwan"; in Hong Kong, the sacred goal is to
"obtain democracy."

For the sake of
"anti-terrorism", the United States can ignore international law
and disregard the lives of tens of thousands of people in order to invade
Iraq by itself. For the sake of "loving Taiwan," two
bullets became the decorative pieces of the election. In order to
"obtain democracy", certain publicly accepted core values such
as obedience to the law, honesty, professionalism and harmony became irrelevant
and completely obliterated.

For the 7/1 march, the number of
marchers -- whether it was the 200,000 estimated by the police or the
530,000 claimed by the organizing Civil Human Rights Front -- do not have
significantly different implications. Hundreds of thousands of
citizens were out on the street to express their discontent, so the
government must pay attention. There are only marginal benefits in
raising a number from 200,000 to 530,000.

Based upon the size of the march on
7/1, it is not very important to obtain very accurate estimates of the
number of marchers; the march can be joined at various points, so that
poses certain definitional and technical challenges. But the problem
that the Civil Human Rights Front had was not about the definition of the
march size or the technical problem of estimation. The problems
began after various university organizations and academic groups used very
scientific methods, including using videotapes as proof, to come with
estimates between 90,000 and 160,000. At that point, the Civil Human
Rights Front displayed a hegemonic spirit that "democracy cannot be
doubted." In their eyes, democracy -- or, more precisely, the
quest for democracy -- is a 'pass' to use whatever means to do whatever it
takes.

Democracy is not just an ideal; it is
a way of living. When someone who regards democracy as a lifelong
career, or when someone who is a professional warrior faced the questions
from scientists and professionals, what kind of face did they show for
democracy? Civil Human Rights Front spokesperson Jackie Hung Ling-yu
said: "The scholars should act responsibly. If they say that
there only 200,000 people, how can they face the citizens who
marched!" In the eyes of Jackie Hung, promoting a demonstration
is the same as selling weight reduction methods -- the customer is the most important
person who must be pleased. When China first began its reform more
than 20 years ago, they have from history that "practical experience
is the only standard for determining the truth." They insisted
on being pragmatic, and they renounced the propaganda of "5,000
kilograms of rice per hectare" during the Great Leap Forward; but
twenty something years later, the "5,000 kilograms of rice per
hectare" con game is back under the "fight for democracy"
banner. It has repeated itself in the international city of Hong
Kong using the script: "How can you face the people!"

"Fighting for democracy" is
a pass that can be used not only to cheat, but it is also a shield to
gather illegal campaign funds, to attack meetings and to engage in
personal libel. Many well-known writers and broadcast hosts have used
this pass to charge around and create havoc. There is now an
invisible power bloc being formed, becoming an almost irreversible
process. Even the Hong Kong media, which labels itself as being the
"government watchdog by reporting the truth" has succumbed.

On the reporting of the number of
marchers, most newspapers used 530,000 in their headlines and their news reports.
This number has no scientific basis, and defies commonsense and
experience, but they still report it while leaving more scientifically
based estimates in less eye-catching places. Faced with the popular
demand to fight for democracy, professional conduct in journalism became
marginalized. The media were supposed to be the pillar of society,
but now they just go with the flow.

Last month, three hundred
professionals published a declaration that listed eight core values that
were key to the success of Hong Kong. They believed that these
values have been under attack and they were very concerned. The
declaration did not identify who was responsible for these attacks, but
the SAR government should be responsible for defending these core
values. But government officials should not be the only ones
responsible for defending these core values.

The current crisis in Hong Kong is
that politicians are leading the mainstream opinion to devote all their
energies towards changing the election procedures of the chief executive
and the remaining thirty seats in the legislative council. Their
definition of democracy is to achieve the direct elections of the chief
executive and the 30 legco seats within the next three or four
years. In the eyes of the democratic warriors, this is the only
definition of democracy. All other core values of Hong Kong are
insignificant and can be sacrificed as the price for obtaining this
"democracy." Looking at the eight core values in the
declaration from these 300 people, these professionals do not see
fairness, integrity transparency, plurality, inclusiveness, respect for individuals and
professionalism. Never mind the declaration by the other 600 people
about the other three cores values of "pragmatism, stability and
harmony."

The Hong Kong people need to ask
ourselves where our problems are. What are the reasons and
conditions for our success? When we have exhausted all our energies
to obtain this very narrowly defined democracy, will we become what these
300 people said in the declaration: "If the core values are lost,
Hong Kong will be lost."

[translation] The 530,000 figure
for the 7/1 march was subjected to yet another challenge half a month
later. The Hong Kong University Social Sciences Research Center
found that there were at most 120,000 marchers. Actually, the
formula of the Civil Human Rights Front organizers has already been shown
to include an obvious error. Other than the Civil Human Rights
Front, all other calculations have shown that the number of marchers is at
most one half, or one-third, or even one-fourth. But the CHRF has
stood firm -- "530,000" is "530,000" and not one
fewer. All they called for is for people to stop debating the
number.

Prior to the march, people have
challenged the "Return Power To The People" slogan. Civil
Human Rights Front spokesperson Hung Ling-yu said publicly that the slogan
will not be changed because of doubts. That was a firm stand.

From the 530,000 number, I am reminded
of another group of numbers: 6/4. In the 6/4 event of 1989, we were
all pained. We were pained by the dead and we detested the
perpetrators. Fifteen years later, we are still angry because they
refused accept the facts and vindicate the 6/4 student movement. We
are angry and we continue to insist on the vindication of 6/4.

In the 6/4 assemblies held in Hong
Kong, there are usually several tens of thousands of people to demand the
truth be told. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic
Democratic Movement in China insisted on
this point, and refused any communication with China. This was a
black-and-white unambiguous position.

The Civil Human Rights Front includes
all the pan-democratic organizations and people, and there are also the
most solid supporters for the vindication of 6/4 over the past 15
years. Yet, these people who have been demanding the Chinese
government to correct the historical mistake for the past 15 years are
doing the same thing that they denounced. They were wrong, but they
won't admit it and they kept insisting. Even the same excuse is
being used --- just move on.

Actually, many commentators have
pointed out that it does not matter whether the number is 530,000 or
200,000. The fact is that hundreds of thousands of people were out
on the streets, and this demonstrates the discontent of the
citizens. The number itself is unimportant. But the CHRF
refused to correct it. Was it a matter of saving face, or was there
some other reason?

If we cannot even admit to such an
insignificant error and yet we have been pressing China for the past 15
years to admit a big error that affects its own material interests, aren't
we pathetic? Since we are birds of the same feather, how can we keep
insist on vindicating 6/4? Doesn't this make us lose our
justification?

Mencius said: The shame of
shamelessness is a shame. We hope the Civil Human Rights Front will
have the courage to know the meaning of shame. Otherwise, how could
they fight for democracy while ignoring honesty? Where does the
democrats find a place to stand? They are too easy on themselves
while being too harsh on others. This is just as deplorable.

A while ago, Hong Kong was discussing
the core values, which includes honesty. But honesty is not just
talk, it must be acted upon. No person can stand without honesty, no
government can stand without honesty. If society has no honesty, responsibility
and respect for facts, then a 'so-called' democracy is still dysfunctional
society in which the people are the masters. Will Hong Kong fall to
this stage?

(Bauhinia Magazine) Exaggerating
the Number of Marchers: the Danger Signal for the Hong Kong Political
Fight. August 2004.

[translation] The Hong Kong
Civil Human Rights Front exaggerated the number of marchers at this year's
7/1 march and precipitated a confidence crisis. In spite of doubts
raised by scholars, citizens and media, they announced that they had
changed the formula but they would not revise the number. As of the
deadline of this artcile (7/25), they have persisted with the
mistake. This proves that in order to sell the false number of
530,000 marchers, they were ready to take the largest possible political
risk. This approach is like the "Last Day Sale" sign
posted by some stores.

On Queens Road, there is a store that
sells household utensils. In July, they posted a sign that said
"Last Day Sale." I wanted to go in and find some cheap
hosuehold item, but my colleague told me not to go in because this was
false advertising. Anyway, the store was still open the next day
with a "Last 7 Days" sign and at the end of those seven days,
they posted the "Last Day Sale" sign again. I shook my
head. Had I gone in for the "Last Day Sale", I would have
been a fool. Since I didn't want to be fooled, I had no more
interest in shopping there.

In Sheung Wan, in Mongkok, in Tsim Sha
Tsui ... there are signs everywhere in Hong Kong such as "Last Day
Sale" to attract customers. Some of them are probably true, but
aren't those who are lying destroying the commercial trustworthiness of
Hong Kong as a whole?

The Civil Human Rights Front is a
specialized "shop" for organizing marches in Hong Kong.
The numbers that they claim have always been doubted. In last year's
7/1 march, they claimed 500,000 marchers but the police estimate was
350,000. Some newspaper doubted the 500,000 number but here was no
widespread warning. As of now, most people will say that 500,000
people took part in the 2003 7/1 march. This writer does not believe
it, and will use the 350,000 police estimate as the standard because we
can trust the police. The police is out there to protect the rights
of the citizens to demonstrate according to the law. People can
assemble and march to express their wishes, and they should be
respected. But that does not mean that the Civil Human Rights Front
can lie because I don't believe that the marchers have given them the
right to change the objective facts.

Concerning the false 530,000 number
reported by the Civil Human Rights Front for the 7/1 march, a lecturer at
the Hong Kong University Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science pointed
out that the Civil Human Rights Front double-counted the last wave of
marchers and that they also made the mistake of assuming the highest
possible density for the entire march. The Taipo University Students
Union used video recoding to determine that the number of marcher was
89,450 not counting those who joined in the middle. The Hong Kong
University Social Science Research Centre counted 112,000 persons passing
by Admiralty between 3pm and 7pm on 7/1, not including those who left
before Admiralty and those who joined afterwards. The Human Rights
Monitor counted 160,000 by hand. Ming Pao contracted a satellite
photo analysis expert to determine that there were 260,000, which was
later corrected to 192,000 because they too had originally double-counted
the last wave. The Hong Kong police estimate was 200,000. The
joint study by the Hong Kong University Department of Statistics and
Actuarial Science, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University estimated that the number of marchers was 149,000;
when added to the number of people who left in the middle of the march,
the total was between 180,000 and 210,000. A geographical survey
company used high-altitude photography to obtain an estimate of 220,000
persons.

The calculation of the number of 7/1
marchers is clearly divided into two classes: one is the 530,000 reported
by the organizers and they are the only one; the other are the third-party
estimates around 200,000, of which there are seven different
parties. Many citizens pointed out that the march was a lot looser
this year with many gaps between people. The inaccuracy of the Civil
Human Rights Front was easy to see. But when the marchers saw what the
Civil Human Rights Front claimed, they were "shocked" and they
were "angry and disappointed" with the lack of courage to make a
correction. The elite in the city, the common citizens, the
newspaper editorials and the news reports all pointed to the truth and ask
the Front to wake up. Some say that they exaggerated the number in
order to force the hand of the National People's Congress to withdraw
their two decisions about the direct elections; some say that they
intended to exacerbate the conflict between the citizens and the central
and SAR governments to reduce communication; some say that they gave up
political ethics in order to commercialize democratic petitions; some say
the revision of their calculation formula means that they forfeited all
trust; some say that they made up the number in order to make sure that
this year's number of marchers have even greater shock value than last
year's number but they ended up picking a rock and dropping it on their
feet; some say that they exaggerated in order to help the democrats in
this year's Legislative Council elections; some say that they made an
elementary and obvious arithmetic mistake but refused to apologize and
this deplorable attitude is dangerous for Hong Kong.

This author believes that the Civil
Human Rights Front's deed is a warning signal in the political struggle in
Hong Kong.

The exaggeration of the march number
created a bad example in Hong Kong's political development: lying in
public. Does the Civil Human Rights Front want to inform the world
that Hong Kong politics can be played like a game in which democracy does
not have to include honesty? If this method were used to advance the
political system, then who knows where Hong Kong will wind up?

In most of the news reports in the
Hong Kong media on 7/2, they used the Civil Human Rights Front information
as the headline and they mentioned the police estimate within the reports
briefly. This has caused the citizens and the international media to
see clearly that these media chose to put the sensationalistic claim ahead
when they had to choose between reality and commercial effects.
Later on, most of the media objectively reported the doubts about the
false number from scholars, experts and citizens and they reported the
true estimates so that they enabled a judgmental opinion on those who
disregarded trustworthiness.

There is still a small number of
individual newspapers that insisted on being wrong and even used
contributors to lay claim that the number of marchers exceeded a
million. These newspaper are merely showing how silly they
are. For most of the media that believed the false number from the
organizers, there is a lesson: the media have the responsibility for
verification. Just because someone else lied does not excuse the
media for publishing those lies, otherwise what are the reporters, editors
and editors-in-chief good for? Some of them knew that this was a lie
and even though they can source the infromation, they should not just
report its and make a correction later. Otherwise, this allows
people who make up the facts to fool the media and ruin public
trust. The fact that many media in Hong Kong have low public trust
is undoubtedly related to this. Fortunately, some newspapers in Hong
Kong did not trust the information and were more objective in their
reports. Some newspapers used the incorrect numbers but they later
apologized to their readers; these are the real courageous and responsible
parties.

To exaggerate the number of marchers
show disrespect towards the citizens. Everybody could see what was
going on at the march. To publicly inflate the number is to treat
the eyes of the citizens as non-existent. For the Civil Human Rights
Front to use the fact that citizens came out to march in the heat as the
reason not to doubt their number is to transfer its own error onto the
marchers, and it is extremely disrespectful towards the marchers.
Furthermore, more than half of the 530,000 marchers claimed by the
organizers are imaginary and the Civil Human Right Front is usnig them to
impose on others.

As for the wishes of the marchers,
there were many, including the direct elections which should require the SAR
and central governments to consider. But this is no reason to
exaggerate the number. On the contrary, this is an slur to the
marchers' petitioner because they do not need a lie to express their
wishes.

The history of Hong Kong will not be
written this way. This year's march was more cordial. The
participation was not incited by the media. Instead, the exaggerated
number claimed by the Civil Human Rights Front caused a lot of
controversy. Some citizens were worried that this misdeed will form
a local disease in Hong Kong. Once this step is taken, there will be
fifty or a hundred steps later on. If you don't condemn them this
time, there will be another time and even ten more times. Hong
Kong's will have its reputation of "society of trust"
ruined. The core values of Hong Kong will be challenged.
Therefore, public opinion has called for the scientific spirit; more
specifically, the call for not sacrificing the scientific spirit for
political points since the greatest asset for trusting the non-government
organizations is their unbiased ness.

At a time when social sentiments are
becoming politicized rapidly and many politicians are suffering from
battle fatigue from the struggles, when marchers are professionalized with
coffins on parade and personal attacks are standard fare in the streets,
this rational voice is invaluable and represents the hope of Hong
Kong. The number of marchers should be able to endure scrutiny.
The method of calculation and the margin of error should be made known to
the public.

The importance of that number is that
it reflects the incidence of an opinion in the population. The
importance of ten persons versus 100,000 person is different, and the
opinion of 200,000 versus 6 million is also different. Besides, this
affects a world city's political integrity and public
trustworthiness. If this number were really unimportant, then why
did the Civil Human Rights Front exaggerated it? Why is it that in
spite of all the public criticism, they were incapable of correcting the
number? The act of exaggerating the number implies that the number
was far too important. Once the act was exposed, the only defense
was that other people are overestimating the importance of that
number. There is no such logic. History will not be written
for a false number. Since the truth is now known, history will
return to reality.

In order for the citizens of Hong Kong
to have a harmonious, stable and informed society, Hong Kong should be
especaily aware of what these liars have done.

In the U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
(link),
the following sentence appears: "On July 1, 200,000 to 400,000 people marched through central Hong Kong again in support of universal suffrage and greater democracy."
That is, the U.S. State Department does not accept the figure of 530,000.